Monday was a day to catch up and go through correspondence. There was a back log of correspondence that had come in over the holiday weekend. Later I met with our development staff to look at upcoming events and to make sure we were on top of those for this semester.
Chancellor David Gearhart
Later that afternoon I had a meeting in the student union. Chancellor Dave Gearhart has formed a new group called the Chancellor’s Administrative Policy Committee in which he shares some of the challenges facing the University, initiatives we hope to undertake, and get feedback from a broad array of constituencies. It’s really a marvelous group in the sense that it allows for input from all the various stakeholders in the University community. It’s a good time to find out what’s going on around campus because each member of the group shares what’s happening in their unit. I look forward to those meetings in terms of what’s going on. I’ll just share with you a couple of initiatives. One which has been highlighted in the press is the University’s support and scholarships for veterans who would be returning to school. Also, the Chancellor is looking at creating more public art on campus. I also think this group shows the Chancellor’s openness and willingness to share policy decisions and to be inclusive in terms of the decision making process.
Vice Chancellor Brazzell
It was also a sad occasion both for the University and for me personally because it was Vice Chancellor Brazzell’s last meeting with us. She is leaving the University as of the end of January. I still remember meeting Johnetta when we were trying to recruit her here and very much wanted her to join us and become part of the U of A community. We will greatly miss her.
That evening I stayed late and tried to get through a lot of the accumulated correspondence and e-mail because the next day I was leaving for the The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Annual Meeting. The AALS meeting is the annual conference for law academicians and administrators. Concurrently run with that is a conference for development and alumni professionals, so it’s the largest total gathering of those of us in legal education from around the country. I always look forward to it every year because I often see friends that I only see that one time every year. It was held in San Diego, and given the recent weather here in Arkansas in January that was also a plus.
Nancecy 